You can have ambitious goals and long-term plans, but without good organization, it is difficult to reach the goal. It is said that those who have goals but do not achieve them, swing in the clouds, and are detached from reality. Friends ask me, where do I get time for work, hobbies, and family? I don’t know. But I know how organized I have a week. Perhaps this is the key to success. In this post, I want to share with you my organization of the week to inspire you to find some time to pursue your passion.
To begin with, responsibilities.
From the moment we turn a few years old, responsibilities begin to appear in our lives. Some are imposed by parents, others by society. You can get upset that someone is interfering in our lives, but I don’t like to direct my attention to something I can’t control. So it is that part of the day is consumed by work. In some cases, the greater part, in others a smaller one. I spend eight to ten hours at work, five days a week. Other duties are standard household activities such as shopping, cleaning, etc. There is nothing to write more about them because I rather throw them into the so-called “meantime”.
Family life
This area is partly planned and partly customary. Planned activities include her daughter’s afternoon activities. In turn, any other moments with the family are usually not planned. Well, maybe except for joint trips, because we like to have them planned. As for extracurricular activities, I try to use the time when my daughter has classes, depending on where the classes are and what the conditions are. Sometimes you manage to read a book, sometimes you manage to move a little, and sometimes you manage to do something on your computer. I will give you details in this case but know that this time is always used somehow.
Hobby
At the end of the day, tired of all-day activities, I fall into bed and fall asleep in 5 minutes. My wife says that when falling asleep lasts more than five minutes, the famous “I can’t fall asleep” appears, and after another few minutes and turns left and right I sleep.
Okay, but it was supposed to be about planning and time for hobbies. Exactly. I used to start my day with a morning embrace and go to work, but then it was difficult for me to mobilize for additional activities. Well, unless it’s about movement, I almost always want to. However, one day I read an excerpt from the book “Profession of a Programmer” by Maciej Aniserowicz and everything changed. Maciej proposes a slightly different approach to the organization of the day. First, time for hobbies, then time for other activities. I’ve listened to this advice and I’m doing it.
I get up at 4:30 and start the day by learning to program. Usually from an hour to two. Then the morning embrace, work, and so on. It would seem that this hour is not much. On the one hand, this is true. An hour or two sneak by like a tornado, especially when you do something you like. On the other hand, Jeff Olson in his book “The Slight Edge” argues that an hour or two a day is enough to effectively develop in a certain direction. This belief is reflected in scientific research. The most important thing, however, is that it suits me. In the morning I am well rested, so it is easy for me to focus on learning new issues.
In the evening I also find an hour, sometimes two for programming, but then I rather work with data. It does not require me such “efficiency of the mind” as learning to code, so I calmly analyze in the evening. In addition, in data analysis, the computer needs the most time to perform calculations, so there is a lot of so-called “meantime”.
Weekends
I spend every other weekend at school. I’ve always wanted to graduate from an IT technical school, and that’s what I’m doing. In turn, I spend the rest of the weekends with my family and fight my best not to sit down at the computer. In this case, the stick has two ends. On the one hand, I have the impression that I could “carve out time” for programming a bit this weekend, but on the other hand, I know how important rest is. You can not constantly load the body to the maximum, because everyone has their endurance. At some point, there is so much fatigue that everything is discouraged. Then it takes much longer to return to the usual rhythm of the week than these two days full of relaxation.
Summary
In my life, most of the day is managed by activities not related to hobbies. However, every day I get up early and thanks to that I manage to do what I like often. This, in turn, drives the joy of the results and the circle closes. This is certainly not the only way to find “time for yourself” but in my case, it works. The most important thing, in my opinion, is not to look for “large” time blocks for the implementation of hobbies, but to find such moments during the day when you can afford to realize what you like, even for a while.
